Jay Halstead, Crisis Counselor
"Are you the police?"
"No, I just work with the police. I'm here to help you."
Jay can remember the exact moment he changed his mind about what he wanted to do with his life. He'd made it through the police academy, had a uniform and a badge, was patrolling the city of Chicago for a little over a month and thought he was making things safer. But he got pulled into a shootout that felt a lot like being back in Afghanistan, and he missed all the signs he should have seen in his suffering best friend, and none of it was what he expected his life to be like once he was home.
At four in the morning, Tuesday, November 15th, 2011, he sat in a hospital waiting room and made a choice.
By the time he was sitting in a diner three days later, he had quit his job. Between pestering nurses and refilling his body with cheap, tasteless coffee, he'd turned in his badge and filled out the paperwork to enroll in classes that would start after the holidays. It was almost a complete turn around from where he'd been, and it meant finding a part time job and a roommate - his thankfully alive best friend - so that he could keep a roof over his head while he got his degree. If his brother could get through medical school, he could get a Bachelor's on the government's dime.
Facing criminals and getting shot at wasn't what he wanted to do after all. It was too dangerous, brought up too many memories he'd rather forget, and even his therapist thought that distancing himself from things like that was better for him. Because of her and all of the sessions he begrudgingly attended, he actually slept through the night most of the time. He was able to stop drowning all the pain in too much alcohol, or any alcohol at all. He focused on school, and shifts at the family restaurant he'd gotten a job at, and making sure all of the medications in the bathroom cabinet got taken at the right times.
When Jay graduated with his sociology degree, and passed the test to become a licensed social worker, and his best friend became his boyfriend, things finally settled into place the way he thought they would before he'd turned his own life upside down. There were good days, where he got to work with kids and teenagers who just needed someone to listen to them and acknowledge what they were going through, and bad days, where talking to someone wasn't enough to save them from themselves. But it was a life he was proud of, and he'd saved more lives through engaging in the community than he'd taken overseas, and that was the kind of balance Jay didn't know he'd craved.
[ Mouse ]
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I redrew (and redesigned) my Portal boi because he definitely needed a refresh!
Sum details:
His mask broke during the long fall in Portal 2 but he kept it anyway
I'm going with the stupid "Portal 2 happens 50 000 years into the future" theory because it's complete nonsense and I fucking love it so, because he spent so long in the Relaxation Vault, he got very pale (he was already pale in Portal 1 but not as bad)
For the same reason, his hair grew pretty long (he shaved it after escaping)
He got the massive burn scar on his left arm from an energy pellet grazing him
Oh yeah, trans rights also
And I just realized that I never shared his backstory here so it's under the cut if you're curious!
In chronological order:
Mitch creates Aperture
He puts Ophelia at the head of the entire facility
Ophelia realizes that Pedro would make the perfect test subject so she wipes his memory -it's the first and only time that a full memory wipe is done on a subject- She then realizes that watching him test would make her feel bad so she gives him the mask to hide his face. That way, she can watch him test without any remorse.
After a few tests, she puts him in a cryo-chamber (because she wants to put him through much harder tests that have not been invented yet)
Mitch and Denny are (forcefully) hired as test subjects but are brainwashed. They are both put in cryo-chambers
Not long after, Ophelia decides to turn herself into an android so she can live forever and control the entire facility. The scientists warn her that this can cause severe memory loss and mild insanity. She does it anyway and loses all memories of her human life. She now has full control over Aperture.
Judging all the scientists useless, Ophelia floods the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin
Portal 1 happens
At the start of Portal 2, Pedro is woken up by banana Pedro (who is a core in this AU) who wants to help him to get out of here.
Basically the same story happens. But Pedro eventually encounters Mitch and Denny who try to take him down. He kills them in return (Denny didn't have his long fall boots)
They finally get to Ophelia. Though, contrary to Wheatley (who got corrupted by the mainframe), Core!Pedro was actually planning to take Ophelia's place from the beginning. He stuffs Ophelia in a potato battery (she appears as an hologram being projected from the weird eye/circle thingy on it) and sends she and Pedro down the elevator shaft
Pedro's mask breaks during the fall, which leads Ophelia to realize that his face feels familiar after they reunite
While going through old Aperture, Pedro and Ophelia learns the truth about themselves (thanks to all the pre-recorded messages)
The rest of the game happens pretty similarly, except that at the end, after shooting Core!Pedro into space, Ophelia tries to get Pedro back to testing (after all, he IS the perfect test subject). Pedro refuses and attempts to destroy her. He fails, but Ophelia gives up and lets him go as she does not want someone who will try to destroy her 24/7
Basically like in Blue Sky, Pedro ends up in a small town where the people help him back to full health. He settles here and eventually finds out he has great cooking and baking skills and gets his own little cake shop (I'm not sure I still want this to be the post-game for this AU but I'll leave this here anyway)
These notes date back to 2020 HOLY SHIT IT'S BEEN 4 YEARS
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🤍 for Mariocest
The Mario bros..... married.....
🤍 - Kiss at the wedding
In which Mario dreams of a future he never thought he'd have
Mario collapsed onto is back in the grass of the castle court yard, knocking the wind out of himself in the motion. Married, he thought. Marriage. The big show of devotion.
He'd put the concept far out of his mind before he really even understood it. He was never going to be the kind of guy to be legally married, because the only one he could fathom to ever love that much was his brother.
But now here he lay, in a Kingdom Far Far away from the rugged, probably valid, laws of Brooklyn, New York State, USA.
Every day Mario was reminded just how different the Mushroom Kingdom, and the entire world it existed within, was from his home. How they perceived Familial Relations wasn't as black and white, related or not, as it was back on Earth.
The way Peach had explained it, everyone is related in the Mushroom Kingdom, in the biological sense, in an unseen connection way. Families, parents and children and siblings, still existed but they were always more of a choice one makes than people one could be stuck with through blood ties. A choice that could be edited, reversed, altered as the relationship changed.
It was all a little too big of a concept for Mario, and the Princess tends to Grandify her explanations, but what it boiled down to was so very simple.
Here, in the Mushroom Kingdom, brothers, sisters, cousins and whoever else, are free to marry. Legal, true marriages.
Mario felt his heart rate pick up speed as it sunk in even further. Marriage. A real wedding with guests happy for them. With food and flowers and gifts and suits and- Mama mia rings.
He could propose. By Stars he could propose, a real proposal, and have it mean something. A real question with a real answer and a ceremony with vows and a big party.
Mario's hands clenched around his overall straps as he kicked his legs into the air a bit, his heart pounding in his chest as he squirmed out his excitement. He needed to calm down.
With a deep breath Mario focused on the clouds floating lazily overhead. White and fluffy and calm, oh so calm. Drifting slowly through the sky.
Mario closed his eyes, his heart rate slowing, the burning in his cheeks dimming. A cloud blocked the sun over head, cooling him down.
He wondered what Luigi would want to wear to their wedding. Mario always believed himself a Tuxedo guy. He'd wear the occasional dress, but it really wasn't his style. Luigi on the other hand...
Oh.. Luigi in a wedding dress...
Mario could see him now. Long and frilly with puffy sleeves and short gloves, standing with a thin veil and a bouquet of those beautiful rocket flowers at the end of an aisle lined with pews full of people who are so, so happy for them.
He walks down the aisle, and Mario stands tall on the staged in his white tux, and he is mesmerized by his brother's beauty, and no one else in the room seems to matter any longer.
They say their vows, they exchange rings. Mario is holding Luigi's hands so tenderly in his own, and he is crying. They're both crying, and this is really happening, and neither of them can look away or think of anything other than how happy they are to be there. Together.
"You may now kiss the bride"
Yeah.. Luigi would like the sound of bride.... Wife...
The cloud overhead moved along with the light breeze, allowing the warm sun to shine down onto Mario as he napped in Peach's court yard.
It wasn't an uncommon sight, to see the Hero of the Mushroom Kingdom asleep in the grass on warm days, so no one dared bother him.
Besides. He looked like he was having a nice dream.
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